Epigraphia Indica Vol 27

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 21

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVII
In the two pillar inscriptions, the name Kamtakasola is preceded by the word ukhasirivadhamāne, but in both cases the vowel-marks of the last two syllables are conjectural. There is, however, a third inscription in which the word occurs, and here the stroke indicating the vowel è in the final syllable is perfectly clear. It must therefore be a noun in the locative case, and we are perhaps justified in assuming that it indicates the locality where the monuments to which the inscriptions refer were erected. In other words, Ukhasirivadhamana appears to be the ancient name of Ghantasala. The occurrence of Vardhamana1 as a place-name in ancient India is testified by inscriptions, the best known examples being the town of Bardwan in Bengal and Vadhvän, the chief town of a state of the same name in North-East Kathiawar. Ptolemy (VII, 1, 93) mentions Bardamána among the inland towns of the Maisoloi, and as in his days the b had assumed the sound value of which it has in modern Greek, the name is an exact rendering of Vardhamana. The position assigned by the Greek geographer to Bardamána is 136° 15' E 15° 15′ N, whilst he locates Kantakossyla at 134° 30′ E 11° 30' N. This renders it difficult to identify his Bardamana with Ukhasirivaddhamana.
Another alternative would be to connect the last-mentioned place with Kantakasola and to explain it as a territorial division in which this emporium was situated. In support of such an explanation one might quote the topographical designation "kammakara[t]the game Naḍature" (Jaggayyapeta inscription No. 2, 1. 2), meaning in the village of Naḍatura in the province (raṭṭha) of Kammāka. But the third inscription which opens with Ukhasirivadhamane without further mention of a town or village prevents us from accepting such an interpretation.
A point of some interest to which Dr. Chhabra draws my attention is the mention of a mahānāvika named Sivaka in one (E) of. the Ghantasala inscriptions. We are reminded of another mahānāvika, named Buddhagupta, who is mentioned in a Sanskrit inscription discovered in 1834 by Captain James Low near a ruined Buddhist temple in the province Wellesley of Malaya. The inscribed slab was presented by him to the Asiatic Society of Bengal and must still be preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. In both cases the expression reminds us of the seaborne trade between Coromandel and Further India carried on under the direction of Buddhist master mariners. The inscriptions A and B are written in a very ornamental kind of writing very similar to the script employed in the epigraphic documents of the Ikshvāku dynasty from Jaggayapeta and Nagarjunikonda. The Jaggayyapeta inscriptions were assigned by Dr. Bühler to the third century A.D. The long-drawn vertical strokes of ka, ra and la and of the vowel-marks for i and u are among the most obvious characteristics of this writing. The bulging base-strokes of na, na, ma and va, which are also found in the Pallava inscriptions, as well as the shape of ya, seem to point to a somewhat later development. It will, however, be seen that these bulging base-strokes do not occur in inscription C which must be contemporaneous with A and B, as the three inscriptions refer to the same monument, viz., a mandapa erected by the householder Buddhisiri. The two pillars on which A and B are incised must have served the purpose of supporting the roof of this pavilion. Above the inscription there are in each case two figures of animals running from right to left. The lions of the first pillar are similar in style to those found on some of the Nagarjunikonda sculptures.
Whereas the inscriptions on these two pillars are excellent specimens of epigraphic art, it is curious that the third inscription, consisting of a single line of writing, has been done in such a careless manner. Apparently this short epigraph was not intended for permanent record, but was meant only as a notice, indicating for what edifice the piece of sculpture on which it is cut was intended.
1 Place-names, ending in vardhana, like Košavardhana and Dharmavardhana, are fairly common. Burgess, op. cit., p. 110, pl. LXII, No. 2.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (New Series), Vol. I (1935), p. 17. The father of Kannaki, the heroine of the Tamil classic Silappadikaram (circa 200 A.D.) was a manaikan. The translator, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, has translated the term as sea-captain, though he has equated it with Skt. mahanayaka (p. 88, n.2), whereas it can very well be mahanavika. For this information I am indebted to Mr. M. Venkataramayya, Assistant to the Government Epigraphist.